Joplin recap w/ VIDEOS

Cleveland National Forest, CA. The Path riders woke up early Sunday morning to meet at Cooks Corner at 7:00 AM. The route would take us up Santiago Canyon Road, up and over Modjeska Grade. (Though some of us cheated and kept going to Modjeska Canyon Road. Adds a little milage, but less climbing. Think of it as the trucker route.) We regrouped at the bird sanctuary. About 8:00 AM Darin, Pat and I began our climb/grind up the Harding Truck Trail. The others would follow a couple of minutes behind.

Nice sign at the beginning of Harding:

The morning was damp with drizzle, but that kept the temps in the 60's for the climb. Something we all appreciated. Just below the rock garden on Harding (before the spring) the clouds melted away. (This made me happy, sun is alway best for videos.)

Joel & Mondo working their way up Harding:

About the 10:30 AM the lead riders and myself reached 4 Corners. (Where the Harding Truck Trail and Maple Springs terminate and meet the Main Divide.) Yes, the leaders were taking it easy.

Here Mondo arrives at 4 Corners on his pimped ride:

I think it took an hour to regroup. Some guys got flats, some turned back. Some even showed up at the shop at 8:15, heard where we had gone and actually caught up to us at 4 Corners.

Then there was Pat aka CPATCRASH aka Magellan. Instead of heading up Harding, he jumped a fence, road/hike-a-biked up some road, finally realized his error, came back down and made his way up Harding. I give him credit for not abandoning the ride after that miscue.

Time for the final push up to Modjeska Peak. This is one of the dreaded climbs on the Main Divide. It's not too long, it is just loose and rocky and sometimes fly infested. Plus you are usually tired at this point anyway.

Here Henry makes his way along the Main Divide:

After our short ride up to the Modjeska Peak overlook, we regrouped again. At this point my quads are close to cramping.

"Crash" Maxwell dons his protective gear:

While Frank tries to cram in a short nap:

Once reassembled, it is a short ride down the Main Divide to the center of the saddle between Modjeska and Santiago Peaks.

Joplin trailhead marker:

Time to raise the forks, lower the seats, put on proctective gear or cover your arms and legs for Poison Oak defense.

Joplin can be steep, loose, rocky, off camber, but its a fun descent. Maybe a quarter of the way down Tani gets a flat. I was thankful for another break.

Tani and the fellas taking a break on Joplin:

Flat tires would spread the group out again. Everyone had a good time and no one got hurt.

Here we regroup in Old Camp:

A short maybe 1/2 mile climb out of Old Camp and we are on top of the Santiago Truck Trail.

After doing Joplin it is a nice bonus to get to descend the Santiago Truck Trail and The Luge back to the cars.

Great videos

Wow, great stuff. I'm a Norcal regular and I'm starting to lurk on this board since I'll be down in the Mission Viejo area for a week around Thanksgiving. These last two video posts by Winston are really making me happy that I'm driving down with my bike instead of flying down. I definitely want to check out Trabuco Canyon ride (Winston's last video post)... Joplin looks like it may be a bit more than I can chew in several places. Once it gets closer to my trip down, I'll probably start looking around for some group rides. Hopefully it will stay relatively dry around then.

I grew up in Tustin but left before I starting mountain biking... it's nice to know there's a killer LBS in my hometown.

How I finally got the TMPGEnc encoder to work with an Adobe generated DV-AVI file.

Taken from the TMPGEnc forums:

This comes up quite often lately, but there doesn't seem to be a correct answer in any of the messages (I searched over 1255 messages). The answer involving moving the directshow priority is close, but it doesn't always work on all systems.
It should be added into the help file of TMPEG 2.5+ that this is a problem.

"When converting an avi to mpg, the mpg shows no video, but, has audio."

Here goes....

Open TMPEG, select the Option menu
Select Enviromental settings
Select the VFAPI tab
Move the DirectShow Multimedia file reader to the #2 priority position
Move the AVI VFW compatbility Reader to the LAST priority positiion.
(on some systems) move the BMP/PPM/TGA/JPG File Reader to the #1 position
Select the OK button
Quit TMPEG

I liked your expletive at the little gap jump near the start of the Luge. That one claimed me a few weeks ago when I wasn't paying attention.

It looked like a great ride. Any idea on total mileage and climbing?

C

Here's a great discription of miles and elevation;http://geoladders.com//show_route.php?route=17
Don't be fooled with the only 24 miles! It's a ruff 24 miles!
Geat videos Winston. I've got a couple of pictures to add to yours....
Never mind, they're to big for this site. I'll send them to you and maybe you can post them.

Very Cool

It's been 42 years since the 1st time I was up on the Main Divide, but I recognize that traverse, and the view over to the peak. That's way cool. I gotta get back down there.

4 Corners? I remember that spot, and alwasy wondered where the other two roads went (if you were coming up Maple Springs to the peaks). So if you go hard right from Maple Springs, its Harding down to Modjeska, and if you go center, Main Divide, and left, MainDivide to God knows where, Corona and/or Black Star?

Last time I was up that way was about '84. My brother and I drove his Toyota 4wd up to what I'm thinking is Old Camp. The gate off the paved road was down and we had some, ah, local knowledge this was a good route. The road was hairy and we were taking it slow, not wanting any mishaps. Part way up we see the only other person we saw all day, a ranger headed downhill on a small motorcycle. He came slightly out of control, around a hairpin, and stopped about 2 feet in front of our grill guard. We sort of noticed his eyes get REALLY BIG.

In picture below, my back is pretty much to Maple Springs. Bottom right heads down Harding. Upper right takes you off towards the peaks on the Main Divide. Upper left takes you to Silverado Motorway, Beek's Place, etc on the Main Divide.

Cool Old Camp story. My dad says he drove my mom in their mustang up Harding back in the day. (Where is the smiley face with the white beard?)

Originally Posted by HarryCallahan

So if you go hard right from Maple Springs, its Harding down to Modjeska, and if you go center, Main Divide, and left, MainDivide to God knows where, Corona and/or Black Star?

Ok... I admit, I'm just a weee bit intimidated by your group to ride with ya'll (Ok... I'm really intimidated) but for the first time after reading your posts, I thought to myself this is something I can do. I mean, this time I had hope looking at the videos: you don't just do technical but you do some long endurance and CLIMBING (my specialties). I definitely wouldn't be able to hang on the DH or technical sections but I'd LOVE the endurance. How do people know ahead of time what you'll be riding? Or is it just an exclusive group of friends from the Path, in which case I woudn't want to be interrupting. just curious. no big deal.

all are welcome who take self responsibility

Originally Posted by BikeAddict

Ok... I admit, I'm just a weee bit intimidated by your group to ride with ya'll (Ok... I'm really intimidated) but for the first time after reading your posts, I thought to myself this is something I can do. I mean, this time I had hope looking at the videos: you don't just do technical but you do some long endurance and CLIMBING (my specialties). I definitely wouldn't be able to hang on the DH or technical sections but I'd LOVE the endurance. How do people know ahead of time what you'll be riding? Or is it just an exclusive group of friends from the Path, in which case I woudn't want to be interrupting. just curious. no big deal.

We sometimes know on Sat where we will ride on Sunday. You are welcome to call the shop and find out. Often, the destination is not decided till Sunday morning. The rides always have a wide variety of riders with various skills and attitudes. If you are a little bit fit, and know when to walk your bike, you can have fun on one of our Sunday rides. There does tend to be some hike a bike, and some steep technical descending and climbing. We regroup at the splits in the trail, and there is no shame in walking a section that you are not ready to ride.

Ok... I admit, I'm just a weee bit intimidated by your group to ride with ya'll (Ok... I'm really intimidated) but for the first time after reading your posts, I thought to myself this is something I can do. I mean, this time I had hope looking at the videos: you don't just do technical but you do some long endurance and CLIMBING (my specialties). I definitely wouldn't be able to hang on the DH or technical sections but I'd LOVE the endurance. How do people know ahead of time what you'll be riding? Or is it just an exclusive group of friends from the Path, in which case I woudn't want to be interrupting. just curious. no big deal.

I like to say that if it wasn't for The Path guys (the ones working at the shop, and those that show up for the Sunday rides) that I wouldn't be into riding like I am now. My first ride with them was up Harding. I had just started riding, and had no idea what was comming. They waited for me, and regrouped, I don't know how many times. Their laid back attitudes, and encouragement, kept me comming back. That was around 7 years ago, and the ONLY time I'll miss a Sunday ride is, if my daughter Lacey has a race, or if there's a family get together that can't be done on a Saturday.
You should come a long. You'll have a great time!

In picture below, my back is pretty much to Maple Springs. Bottom right heads down Harding. Upper right takes you off towards the peaks on the Main Divide. Upper left takes you to Silverado Motorway, Beek's Place, etc on the Main Divide.

Great videos and information, as always, Winston!

Does anyone out there have a video of Silverado Motorway? I've searched, but didn't find one. I've only ridden it once (so far!) and thought that was a very fun trail...